It is very satisfying to develop a useful software being downloaded by millions of people around the world, but have you ever thought of the the stress being faced when developing these programs, starting from the planning and coding of it to the deployment, especially for those of us who work alone trying to prove our competence by developing programs that tells the world "Yes we can do the job" so that we might at least get hired?
Starting out, I always wanted to make a software that people can download and find useful. In the quest of this, I was told I needed to be very good at coding before I can develop such a software. I agreed and started a journey of becoming a good coder, during this time, I developed only console programs (Those kinds of command line programs that require you to type in something before something can be done). While developing this, I still dreamt of developing the kinds of desktop programs you find on CNET. Sometimes I feel sorry for those developers because after all the work they have done they still get bad reviews for their products. It is normal for a non-developer to just say discouraging things about someone's work, have you at least read about how these programs are being developed. Of course big companies are behind most of the apps we use today but they don't have coding robots, developers do the coding, human beings do the planning, people rob minds together to ensure these products are available for use.
Finally, I became a bit ok at coding and then decided to get into the market of making useful desktop programs, then I found that apart from being a good coder you still need some other skills to make a very good program. After learning two programming languages, the first thing I learn't was how to develop windows program using win32 with C++. I made some programs, but I wasn't satisfied because to make the kind of programs I dreamt of in this language, I will need to write a lot of code and that might take forever. Then I heard about .Net technologies, because I learn't C#, it became my most preferred tool. Learning WPF wasn't so hard and because of its animation engine, I decided to make my very first mathematics game, "MATHEZO".
I made the game in about 3 weeks and the game was so fun, I played it and shared it with some friend while still correcting some mistakes. I was correcting errors until I got tired of it and decided to kill the project. This was my first experience of creating something good. Yes it was good playing, but hell managing. At some point I wanted to start creating everything from scratch while keeping the game's real look and feel, but every time I did that, I ended up making another game entirely. It got to a point where I started denying the game. The main problem I had was that the game has already been sold to about 5 people and these people had recommended it to about 2 more people. Everyday I receive calls saying:
I got fed up. With all these comments, I knew there were(are) still other things I needed to learn. The next program I made was a contact management system for a client. I was ok on this because he told me what he wanted and I gave him just that. Just then I started understanding what these developers go through even though they are giving out some of their programs for free. Most of the good comments I receive comes from fellow developers who knows the headache involved in software making.
So, if you are coming to into this profession, just know that no body is going to call you a super star, all that is required of you is that you make something that works. Ask people today who sang Speechless and who developed the C++ programming language. You will know what am saying.
Sometimes your boss doesn't want to know how you did it, all he just wants to hear is that you did it. And we the developers we are very good at explaining how we manage to carry out a complex programming task to someone who is not technically oriented. If you are one of the developers that does that, just know you are sometimes talking to yourself. It is just like telling your boss who did Business Administration in school and knows nothing about computers how you concatenated two strings to get the desired string, he will look at you and say : "Shey Ele yi ya were ni?". The only people that are going to see your great work are your fellow developers.
Irrespective of the NIGHTMARE IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT, I am very proud to be a software developer.
Thanks for reading, your comments and corrections are welcomed.
Starting out, I always wanted to make a software that people can download and find useful. In the quest of this, I was told I needed to be very good at coding before I can develop such a software. I agreed and started a journey of becoming a good coder, during this time, I developed only console programs (Those kinds of command line programs that require you to type in something before something can be done). While developing this, I still dreamt of developing the kinds of desktop programs you find on CNET. Sometimes I feel sorry for those developers because after all the work they have done they still get bad reviews for their products. It is normal for a non-developer to just say discouraging things about someone's work, have you at least read about how these programs are being developed. Of course big companies are behind most of the apps we use today but they don't have coding robots, developers do the coding, human beings do the planning, people rob minds together to ensure these products are available for use.
Finally, I became a bit ok at coding and then decided to get into the market of making useful desktop programs, then I found that apart from being a good coder you still need some other skills to make a very good program. After learning two programming languages, the first thing I learn't was how to develop windows program using win32 with C++. I made some programs, but I wasn't satisfied because to make the kind of programs I dreamt of in this language, I will need to write a lot of code and that might take forever. Then I heard about .Net technologies, because I learn't C#, it became my most preferred tool. Learning WPF wasn't so hard and because of its animation engine, I decided to make my very first mathematics game, "MATHEZO".
I made the game in about 3 weeks and the game was so fun, I played it and shared it with some friend while still correcting some mistakes. I was correcting errors until I got tired of it and decided to kill the project. This was my first experience of creating something good. Yes it was good playing, but hell managing. At some point I wanted to start creating everything from scratch while keeping the game's real look and feel, but every time I did that, I ended up making another game entirely. It got to a point where I started denying the game. The main problem I had was that the game has already been sold to about 5 people and these people had recommended it to about 2 more people. Everyday I receive calls saying:
- Hello Kingsley, the game is hanging please come and check it.
- Kingsley, the game is misbehaving, I should be getting 20 points in finishing stage one but am getting 40 points.
- Kingsley, the music of the game is distracting, is there anything you can do to it?
- Kingsley, the color of the numbers should be changing, am tired of this your game o!
I got fed up. With all these comments, I knew there were(are) still other things I needed to learn. The next program I made was a contact management system for a client. I was ok on this because he told me what he wanted and I gave him just that. Just then I started understanding what these developers go through even though they are giving out some of their programs for free. Most of the good comments I receive comes from fellow developers who knows the headache involved in software making.
So, if you are coming to into this profession, just know that no body is going to call you a super star, all that is required of you is that you make something that works. Ask people today who sang Speechless and who developed the C++ programming language. You will know what am saying.
Sometimes your boss doesn't want to know how you did it, all he just wants to hear is that you did it. And we the developers we are very good at explaining how we manage to carry out a complex programming task to someone who is not technically oriented. If you are one of the developers that does that, just know you are sometimes talking to yourself. It is just like telling your boss who did Business Administration in school and knows nothing about computers how you concatenated two strings to get the desired string, he will look at you and say : "Shey Ele yi ya were ni?". The only people that are going to see your great work are your fellow developers.
Irrespective of the NIGHTMARE IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT, I am very proud to be a software developer.
Thanks for reading, your comments and corrections are welcomed.
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